Extremist groups disrupt social balance
By Michael Kraft, reporter

     I consider myself a fairly unflappable guy. Nothing much scares me.
     The one thing that does scare me, however, is extremist groups.
They attack from all sides: the right-wing militias shouting about the liberal commie government wanting our guns; the anarchists comparing our government to a fascist police state; the liberals desiring more big government; the religious nuts wanting to “educate” everyone who doesn’t believe the same way that they do and the atheists wanting to destroy all organized religion.
     Most Americans are pretty moderate. They vote according to the issues, not party affiliation; they want a balanced government and whatever is best for their bank account. These are the people who can pass most of these groups off as the whining jokes that they are. But good propaganda can sway even good, thoughtful people.
     The groups that have the most influence, even if on a small number of people, are the right-wing religious groups such as the Christian Coalition and other ultra-conservative religio-political groups.
     Now, just to avoid a misunderstanding, I have no fault with religious people, with most religious groups or any religion itself. But the way these religious right-wingers, such as Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan, prance about actively promoting the belief that blacks, women and homosexuals are inferior to the all-powerful white Aryan male and hiding behind misquoted scripture is simply ludicrous.
     One can look at the KKK, the Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and just about any militia and dismiss them as a serious threat because they will never have any real power.
These religious groups, however, want the big pie. They want a shot at the White House. And why not? What better platform to further their cause and promote their narrow beliefs to followers everywhere?
     Many say this country needs a return to the good, clean values of the ’50s, and these “religious reformers” promise just that. No scandals, no drugs, no sex, no alcohol, no violence, just good, clean, wholesome living.
     But in the ’50s, blacks couldn’t vote or hold decent jobs; women couldn’t hold a good job either and were expected to be subservient to a man; Latinos were kept in barrios, and immigrants were oppressed. The only group with any power was the white male.
     These very people are leading the push for bringing back the ’50s!
     I am a white male, but I think these religious reformers are out of control. The First Amendment, which is allowing me to write this very article, would be gone or rewritten to allow the government to persecute any “offensive, dangerous, or radical” view except, of course, their own. They would take away our guns, search and seize whatever they wanted, put a person on trial as many times as needed for a conviction, or they could do away with the trial-by-jury system entirely.
     These right-wing religious conservatives would pass laws that forbade the worship of any deity except what they tell you to believe, laws that outlawed drinking, smoking, gambling, driving powerful cars, getting tattoos, wearing long hair, even having sex outside of marriage.
     “Do as I say, and not as I do!” is their rallying cry with their leaders such as Jimmy Swaggart decrying the “sinful paths that lead away from God and the church, paths such as booze and sex.”
     They do this not because they feel it is all right, but because they feel they are the exception to their rule. This formula is one for disaster. After they have run out of targets for persecution, they will turn on each other, and after their collapse, who knows.
    They twist a good biblical message into a message of hatred, bigotry and oppression.
     These right-wing zealots are the modern day Nazis wanting nothing except the systematic and methodical destruction of free thought, free love and free belief.